The odds are good that your business will be touched by minimum wage increases soon as well, especially if they are enacted nationally, as President Obama has been campaigning to do.

And while this increase is generally good for workers, it can put additional strain on businesses to remain healthy and profitable. In order to continue to thrive amidst these changes in policy, digital reporting can be a very effective tool.

Here are five ways that digital reporting can help you thrive even as the minimum wage increases around the country.

1. Simplify Reporting and Save Employees Time

Manual logbook maintenance can take up valuable time as workers must locate the logbooks, carry them from place to place and fill in relevant information and metrics each day. They are easy to misplace, difficult to transport and often require significant training to get employees up to speed on how to use them.

Digital reporting, on the other hand, can save employee time by helping to streamline this process. A digital logging solution like our Hub tablets can be durable, is easy to use and has a shallow learning curve. Most employees can learn to use it in five minute or less. This is a major improvement and can save valuable time and money as compared to manual logbooks, allowing your employees to get back to what matters most: your customers.

2. Use Business Intelligence to Streamline Processes

Another key way to save time and overhead is to streamline processes by putting business intelligence data to work. A digital reporting solution such as Squadle’s HQ can help district managers gather valuable information about how their restaurants are performing. This information can then be used to make decisions about how to be more efficient and profitable.

For example, digital reporting can help you recognize whether you are ordering the correct amount of food each time from your suppliers. This way you can avoid waste while also minimizing the amount of time that your employees have to spend calling vendors and changing orders. Over time, digital reporting will help you identify seasonal changes and predict varying needs over time.

3. Empower Managers to Get Work Done From Anywhere

For restaurant chains, there is often significant time lost by employees in transit from location to location. District managers, in particular, can save time and money by not needing to go to each individual store to ensure that compliance and reporting are being completed in a timely and efficient manner.

Digital reporting can be a very effective way to delegate compliance tasks to individual store managers without having to be there each and every day to ensure that they are being carried out.

Additionally, with digital reporting, district managers can review and submit compliance reports from anywhere, saving them time and ultimately dollars on the bottom line.

4. Make it Easier to Share Responsibilities

One key benefit of moving to a digital reporting solution is that it gets easier to share responsibilities among multiple employees. That’s because digital reporting enables greater visibility for teams when it comes to responsibilities. Managers can see which tasks have been completed and which still need to be done.

This means that one person doesn’t need to be working at all times in order for work to get done, which can save lots of money in the long run. Employees at a lower pay grade can step in and move tasks forward without having to wait for managers.

Additionally managers can share tasks amongst themselves without spending a lot of time on hand-off. It can also make it easier for managers to come in after tasks have been completed and see where they stand quickly, without having to ask tons of questions and waste valuable time that could be better spent serving customers.

5. Correct Problems Before They Grow

Finally, as we mentioned in this post, digital reporting can help you spot problems before they spiral out of control and cost you money. For example, if you have an employee who isn’t performing well or meeting expectations, a digital logbook can help you identify this quickly, rather than waiting until one of the employee’s superiors notices the problem, which can take days or even weeks.

Digital reporting can also help managers identify problems beyond the scope of employee work. It can help you spot issues with food quality, inventory amounts and service long before they become a major problem and cost you dollars on the bottom line.

These five examples illustrate ways that restaurants can remain competitive even in the face of wage increases. While rising wages may affect the bottom line, it’s possible to continue to thrive in this climate if district managers use digital reporting solutions to:

Simplify reporting

Streamline processes

Empower managers

Share responsibilities

Identify problems before they become major.

What are you doing to help your restaurant thrive amidst wage increases? Tweet us @GetSquadle and let us know.